We'd forgotten it was not quite seven in the morning, and Shirley wasn't too pleased at being disturbed again. She's a pal, though, and soon forgave me, but couldn't help with the crumble. They were out of them. "Bring some rhubarb back with you," she suggested, 'and I'll make him one."
The east coast suffers from what are known as sea frets. One hundred yards inland it can be a scorcher, but a thick mist rises off the water, blotting out the sun and turning July into November. Today we had a mother and father of one.
We groped our way along the pier, between plastic-clad holiday makers forced to desert their rooms while the maid changed the sheets, and were accosted by the touts who work for the boats. Seven blokes in scruffy clothes hadn't come to sample the fun fare and we were putty in their hands. Dave put up a struggle, giving nearly as good as he got, and insisted that we go in a boat that was only half-filled. Just before we cast off, however, we were ordered to switch into the boat tied alongside, which was also half-full, so now we were in one that was crowded.
On the trip out I explained to Nigel how to put a bunch of mussels on his hook and how to feel for the bottom with the big lead weight.
Because of the weather, and because it was just a three-hour trip, we would only go into the bay. We shivered, shoulder to shoulder, and waited for the boat to stop.
The skipper switched the engine off and gave the order to start fishing. The boat, bristling with rods, looked like a floating hedgehog. I felt my weight hit the bottom, reeled in a couple of turns and showed Nigel how to do the same.
"Now wait for a bite," I said.
"And then what?"
"Strike and haul it up."
"That simple."
"Yep."
The first tangle came after about ten minutes of waiting. Someone at the other side of the boat started winding in, a chap along from me struck and started winding, then Dave, me, Nigel and everyone else in the boat.
"Stop reeling in!" yelled the skipper.
It took him nearly fifteen minutes to unravel the ball of spaghetti that we eventually lifted out of the water. We repeated the exercise six more times and that was the three hours up. "Is it always this much fun?" Nigel asked.
The other four made straight for the pub while we went looking for a fishmonger. "I don't suppose you have any cod with the heads and tails still on?" Dave asked in the most promising one.
"Sorry, sir," the man replied. "It's all been filleted."
"Oh. In that case, can I have six large portions, please?" Shirley and their children, Daniel and Sophie, would be eating with us.
I noticed that the salmon was only ten pence dearer than the cod. "I think I'd prefer a piece of salmon," I said.
Dave turned on me. "You can't have salmon. We've supposed to have caught it."
"Well, I caught a salmon."
"They don't catch salmon."
"Of course they catch it. Where do you think it comes from?"
"It comes from a farm. They farm it."
I turned to the fishmonger. "Was the salmon wild?" I asked him.
"It wasn't too pleased," he replied. Everybody's a stand-up comedian these days.
We couldn't find a rhubarb shop so we joined the others in the pub and let them have a smell of our fish. Dave and Nigel had a couple of pints and I settled for halves because it was my turn to drive. They talked about the job most of the way home while I concentrated on staying awake. "So were you two on the Ripper case?" Nigel asked.
"On it's putting it a bit steep," Dave replied. "We were there, that's all."
"So what were you doing?"
"Stopping cars, mainly. Anybody out late at night got used to being stopped. Other crime fell dramatically."
"And how long did it go on for?"
"Oh, about two years. I'm not proud of it, but the Ripper paid the deposit on my first house."
"We worked hard, Dave," I said. "Some paid for their entire houses and did a lot less than us."
"Mmm, I know."
"You were lucky, weren't you, when you caught him?" Nigel asked.
"Dead jam my Dave agreed.
"It was good policing," I argued.
"We could do with a bit more luck like that," Dave said.
After a silence Nigel asked: "So why haven't you ever gone for your stripes, Dave?"
Dave didn't reply. "You're on a touchy subject, Nigel," I warned.
"Why?"
"I don't know, but he has his reasons, daft as they probably are."
"So why haven't you?" Nigel persisted.
"Leave it," I told him. Dave has fluffed his sergeant's exam several times, but I don't know why. He claims he just freezes in the exam room, but I don't believe him. I've seen him take on more than one whiz kid barrister and do all right.
We were passing a sign saying the next services were ten miles ahead.
"Wouldn't mind stopping for a pee," Dave said.
"Me too," Nigel added.
Nigel was explaining to Dave how J.J. Fox gained control of various companies even though he had less than fifty per cent of the shares.
"He has a reputation second to none for making companies profitable," he said. "OK, so he sacks people and asset-strips, but the shareholders don't mind if they are reaping the benefits. If he has, say, thirty-five per cent of the shares, he can attract the proxy votes of the smaller shareholders who can't be bothered to vote themselves.
This might give him, say, a sixty per cent holding, so he's effectively in control."
"Shareholders want to see their investments doing well," I said as I cruised past the slip road to the services. "You can't really blame them for ignoring the man's ethics."
"Not only that," Nigel added. "Most of the investors are probably pension schemes. They're obliged to strive for the best available for their members, so they can't afford to be choosy."
"Aargh! You've passed them!" Dave complained.
Five minutes later we were back in the rhubarb triangle. "How desperate are you?" I asked.
"Quite," Nigel said.
"Bloody," Dave added.
Away to my left I could see a pair of sheds, side by side in the middle of some allotments, with a Land Rover standing outside them. "Right,"
I said. "In that case we'll kill two birds with one stone." I pulled across into the slow lane and indicated that I was leaving at the next exit.
"Where are we going?" Nigel asked.
"To some rhubarb sheds," I replied. "There was a Land Rover outside.
You can have a pee and I'll see if he'll sell me some rhubarb."
I took left turns until I was driving back alongside the motorway, and turned left again down a cobbled street that looked promising. We were between two rows of terraced houses, left isolated for some reason when the area had been cleared. They were occupied and looked tidy, with clotheslines across the road and some children kicking a ball about.
We'd stepped back in time.
The cobbles gave way to a dirt track that led through the allotments, fenced round with a mishmash of old doors, wire netting and floorboards. Blue smoke drifted up from a pile of burning sods and a piebald pony tied to a stake reached for fresh grass outside the bald circle it occupied.
"There they are," I said, nodding towards the rhubarb sheds. There were two of them at the far side of an area of uncultivated ground, backing against the motorway embankment. More gypsy ponies were tethered nearby, but the Land Rover had vanished.
"He's gone," I said. "Never mind." I drove up to the sheds and stopped. We all got out and Dave and Nigel wandered round the back to relieve themselves.
Several abandoned cars were strewn down one side of the buildings, like wrecks on the seabed, slowly returning to nature. A Morris Minor had almost rotted away, its oil-soaked engine putting up the only resistance. Tall grass and willow-herb grew through tyres that were scattered around, left where they fell. I kicked one and two goldfinches flew up from a patch of thistles.